Colt goes Dutch in DSL launch

More than can be said for the UK

Colt Telecom has started offering broadband DSL services in The Netherlands, the company announced today.

Services are to be made available initially to business users in Amsterdam with Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht coming on line over the next few weeks.

All in all Colt, plans to launch DSL-based services in nine European countries.

It is already offering DSL in France employing the incumbent telecom operator's wholesale service offering.

In Germany, it is offering DSL following LLU and during Q4, it intends to offer DSL in Spain using the incumbent's wholesale service offering.

During 2001 Colt plans to launch DSL based services utilising unbundled local loop in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The exact timing is subject to regulatory and provisioning developments, the company said.

Colt spokesman John Doherty said market conditions in Continental Europe were "far from perfect", but it did appear as if "things were happening" - unlike the UK, where the company which has lodged an official complaint with Oftel over local loop unbundling (LLU) in Britain.

"Things aren't happening as quickly as we would have liked in the UK," he said.

To illustrate his point, Doherty said that Colt had requested space in 170 local exchanges in Germany as part of LLU - and had got the lot.

So far, only 361 of the least popular exchanges have been allocated to some 40 telcos in the UK. Oftel doesn't even have a process in place to allocate the 400 or so most popular ones. ®